Annually Adored
by HecateA
Summary: An examination of the Underworld's favourite holiday. Oneshot.


**HAPPY HALLOWEEN! So I realise that some of the characters here might seem Out of Character, but I've decided that even gods have bad days and that the Underworld gods probably all know each other well enough by now that they're more relaxed around each other. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters portrayed below.**

* * *

**Annually Adored **

* * *

"You look nice," Hades said.

Melinoe looked away from the mirror and smiled.

"Thank you, my Lord. You're not going anywhere, are you? Boring as always," she teased.

He was perhaps the only form of Underworld deity not looking their very, very best. Hades looked very casual, in fact. His robes had been switched out for what couldn't even be called a suit- more of black slack and button down shirt combo. The sleeves were even rolled up to his elbows. It was incredibly impressive.

"Someone has to stay and keep an eye on things if you're all going to go out at once," Hades said.

"We could go in shifts," Melinoe offered.

Hades shook his head. "Halloween doesn't procure me as much amusement. Go have your night of fun."

"I suppose the same can be said for you. You and Persephone are alone in the palace, are you not?" Melinoe said wiggling her eyebrows.

The god didn't answer. He was used to these pokes. "I said go have your night of fun."

"And you have yours, my Lord."

Hecate was at Melinoe's door. Traditionally the magic goddess had three main aspects. She could be a regal woman, a crippled old hag or a young, bouncy and jittery girl. Today it felt like the latter's spirit was in the first's body. A body clad in a low-cut ballgown with thick black ruffles all the way to the ground. There were tiers in her veil, tiny insects and sparkles and flecks of amber sewn into the gauze. Her hair was a carefully messy pile. She wore a heavily crafted mask.

"A bit flashy," Hades said. Hecate held up one finger.

"Once," she said. "Once a year is when we have this opportunity, my Lord. I believe the mortal idiom is 'go big or go home'. Melinoe dear, are you quite ready?"

Melinoe put a hand on her stomach as she nodded. "I haven't worn a corset in the longest time."

"Beginning to remember why?" Hecate said, grinning and tightening the gauzy shawl around her shoulders.

"Corsets disinterest me," Hades said leaving. "I have work to do. Enjoy yourselves, ladies."

"We shall," Melinoe said. Hecate took her hand and they vanished out of the Underworld.

* * *

The music thumped around her. Selene was surprised that the memorabilia decorating the walls wasn't shattering.

The house party probably wasn't even supposed to happen anyways, judging by how long it'd taken the teenagers to emerge from the basement with booze and the fact that the door was hanging open, but Selene was glad to have found it.

"Nice costume," someone called out to her.

"Thank you," she replied. A smile spread on her lips. Nice. Someone had said _nice. _That was original and splendid to hear, overall music to the goddess' ears.

She wore her traditional long white dress. Grey shadows crawled across her robes every now and then, showing the phases of the moon to whoever looked closely enough to recognise the pattern. The goddess had even felt brave enough to pack her hair up on top of her head and show off her long neck. Fabric connected to her wrists poured from her back like wings.

This was the problem with the moon: its constant phases. Not only was the moon only up for under half a day at a time, but even while it was up it changed. As a result Selene, whose only responsibility had been the moon unlike Artemis, was also… well, particular.

Her limbs were long and thin, Helios joked that she was like a beam of moonlight but he may not be wrong. Her hair was pale- not even a pretty, enviable blond colour- but white like an old woman's. Her eyes were so colourless; sometimes it didn't look as if she had irises at all. She looked like the sickest and most repulsive albino on the planet. Nearly alien… Especially since her job had been reassigned to Artemis. She'd been called a fairy or a demon by mortals, and some much meaner things too.

It wasn't every day that aliens could walk among humans.

* * *

"I like your make-up," a little girl wearing a tiara and a puffy coat over something pink, gauzy and sparkling said.

Hecate elbowed Melinoe once she didn't move.

"Thank you," Melinoe said quietly.

The little girl skipped off after a trail of other little girls dressed up as princesses and a responsible-looking adult.

She touched the side of her face. It was rock hard, nearly mummified, and rough to the touch like scar tissue. Her other cheek was soft, but touching it hurt. It prickled like a limb that'd been sat on until the blood was cut off.

Hecate squeezed her hand.

"Are you all right, my friend?" The magic goddess asked.

Melinoe nodded though her throat felt tight.

* * *

The torches that the mortals lit weren't there for light and guidance tonight.

Oh no.

The Jack'O'Lanterns were to symbolise the wicked and the damned making their way through endless and hopeless parts of hell, just as the first Jack had after betraying God but dying in the Devil's debt. Tonight the humans didn't need light, or want it as a matter of fact. Tonight was a night of darkness. It was in the purposefully ghoulish faces around her and in the atmosphere. In the leaves dragging themselves across the ground and in the assorted shrieks as pranks were pulled.

Nyx loved it.

* * *

They'd followed the sound of the music, stopping along the way to admire a costume or particularly well decorated house, or because a crow wanted to chat with Hecate. They had gotten themselves to some mortal house party. Feeling more daring than usual, Melinoe nodded and they went inside.

The press of bodies was overwhelming at first- Melinoe hadn't been in such a big group since she'd been a small child under Lord Hades' protection. Even then she'd been unwelcome and had settled quickly with living in the Underworld, content with the small cast of deities and endless souls there. Surprisingly she got used to it rather easily. The decorations were cheesy, yes, some of the costumes were silly and rather inappropriate, but the party didn't feel like a bad place to be.

It was easy to fit in when nobody was. Even if there daunting or ghastly faces were personal choices while worn by others.

* * *

"Where'd you get those contacts?" The same person said. Selene was startled. A conversation? With a mortal? A very (and very noticeably) cute mortal whose t-shirt read 'GO CEILING GO' said.

"My contacts?" She asked.

"Yeah," he said. "For your eyes?"

"Oh," Selene said. "Those. Umm… I ordered them…"

"Online?" The boy asked. "Yeah, I ordered my costume too- except it didn't deliver. This was my backup," he said gesturing to his t-shirt.

"I don't quite understand what you are dressed as," Selene said nervously.

"I'm a ceiling fan," he said. His eyes sparkled. He threw his fist in the air. "Go ceiling go!"

Selene threw her head back and laughed.

* * *

She walked on the opposite side of a street from a fence lined with hedges and two girls dressed as matching Disney characters.

Suddenly two boys bounced out from the green walls wearing wolf masks accented with tuffs of fur. The girls screamed and started laughing the second after, swatting at their friends as the masks came off. The group ran off down the adjoining street.

Nyx grinned. They were appreciating fear. Finally, at long last, her work, her very realm, was adored.

* * *

He was never able to word his relief properly.

His wings could breathe. They weren't hidden or covered with a cloak or some other contraption- not tonight. Tonight, as Thanatos walked around the decorated town among trick-or-treaters and obligated but unwilling parents, his wings were free. They protruded from his back and the feathers ruffled freely in the wind. Nobody looked twice tonight.

Tonight was a night for freedom.

And generosity. Which was why some children looked in their pillowcases and realised that their candy bars were full sized.

* * *

She starred at her palm.

The Ceiling Fan, Liam McGuire was his name, had had to go. He had a roommate to take the candy-giving shift from, but he'd written his number on her palm before leaving.

Selene smiled.

Once a year she was beautiful.

And that kept her going through the entire year.

* * *

Melinoe was exchanging make-up tips with a girl whose lower face was covered by a zipper when Hecate took her arm and pulled her away. They wandered into another room where the music was just as loud but the people were thrice as stoned.

"That was rude," Melinoe said.

"I need you to remember something," Hecate said. "Please. Just one thing if any."

Melinoe held her glare.

"You aren't dressed up," Hecate said.

Melinoe's hands dropped to her skirt- it was black, cut at the knee, and resting over a crinoline. Her dress had little sleeves like a shirt and a chain as a belt. She played with her hair- she'd managed to flip and twist it over so that the white half of it was covered, and only the black remained. She wore a little fascinator shaped like a top hat, one she'd summoned from a mortal costume store.

She felt mortal. She _looked _mortal.

Until her hands touched her face…

Her features were like a half-melted doll. Half of her face was black, half of her face was white, none of it was pretty. Her lips were cracked and dried. Her eyes were like voids. She was _not _a mortal.

"Don't forget," Hecate said. "This isn't who we are. These mortals masquerading and celebrating… That's not us."

"Once a year it is," Melinoe said. "Once a year we aren't a freak coincidence because of our parentage, or sights from Tartarus or magical beings that need to be hunted and executed or whatever it is that the humans can't forgive us for or forget about."

"We are what we always have been," Hecate said. "They just don't see it. It's all about perception."

Anger flared in her chest.

"From my perspective, maybe you should leave it alone Hecate," Melinoe hissed. "Maybe once a year, once a year, you should give the luxury of anonymity to those of us who cannot simply magically change who we are whenever we're in the mood."

"You're wrong the both of you."

The woman who stood at the door looked like she'd been woven out of a supernova. Her dress shimmered like light in the oil. She wore a mask with rhinestones and gems implanted in the sides and her hair was braided with kaleidoscopic beads. She was smaller than usual, but Nyx looked as regal and ravishing as always.

She strode into the room.

"You, Melinoe, are wrong because we are not freaks," Nyx said. "None of us are. Not even you."

Melinoe would have blushed if her dead skin had been able to do it. The dark side of her face represented her mother, the Queen of the Underworld Persephone. The white side represented the king of the gods, her father, Zeus who had disguised himself as Hades one day. That part of her had died long ago, leaving her with the face she currently wore nonnegotiably. A horrible story, really. Of a young goddess split in two from conception and scarred since birth.

"And you, Hecate, are wrong because it isn't about perception," Nyx said. "Not at all. We aren't any different than anybody else here. Not more than we'd be in any other crowd of mortals. We are masqueraders showing ourselves in a light that we choose. The only perception is yours my dear, and it is wrong."

Nyx smiled. Usually were smile was fearsome and indicated that fear was incoming, but today she looked pleased.

"Today we are celebrated," Nyx said. "Once a year the health of fear, the fun of fear, the thrill of fear is celebrated. Once a year they go looking for it. Once a year time is spent planning and preparing for the one day that everyone gets to be something they're not. Once a year mortals believe a little bit more in magic and ghosts and the monsters under their beds. Today isn't a fraud like you suggest Hecate, or a haven like you call it, Melinoe. It is a day for celebration."


End file.
